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Finland MPs to vote on Nato bid
Finnish MPs will vote this afternoon on speeding up the Finland’s Nato accession process.
Both Finland, which has one of Europe’s longest borders with Russia, and Sweden dropped their decades-long policies of military non-alignment and applied to join Nato in May last year in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
But facing fewer diplomatic hurdles than Stockholm, Helsinki wants to move forward even before Finland’s general elections in April, as public opinion also supports membership.
Finland and Sweden have the backing of all but two of Nato’s 30 members, the holdouts being Hungary and Turkey.
Passing a bill means that Finland can act swiftly even if the ratifications come in before a new government has been formed.
“The time is now to ratify and to fully welcome Finland and Sweden as members,” Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday during a visit to Finland. The legislation is expected to pass easily, after the initial membership bid in May was supported by 188 of the 200 members in parliament.
While passing the bill does not mean that Finland will automatically join Nato after ratification by Turkey and Hungary, it puts in place a deadline for how long it can wait for its neighbour.
The government’s chancellor of justice, Tuomas Poysti, said that after the bill is approved by the parliament, the president can wait a maximum of three months to sign it.
Finland’s president, Sauli Niinisto, told reporters last week that he intended to sign the law as soon as it is approved by parliament but that it could wait until up to the April elections for “practical reasons”.
Key events
Ukrainian official denies it launched drone attacks within Russian territory
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to president Volodymr Zelenskiy, has denied that Ukraine mounts attacks within Russian territory. On Twitter he said:
Ukraine doesn’t strike at the Russian Federation’s territory. Ukraine is waging a defensive war to de-occupy all its territories. This is an axiom.
Panic and disintegration processes are building up in the Russian Federation, reflected by an increase in internal attacks on infrastructure facilities by unidentified flying objects.
Reuters reports that the Kremlin responded to the statement on Wednesday by saying it did not believe it.
On Tuesday Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukraine of launching a spate of attempted drone strikes targeting infrastructure inside Russia, including near Moscow, after a fire broke out at an oil depot in Tuapse, Krasnodar and authorities briefly closed airspace above St Petersburg.
The governors of two Russian regions that border Ukraine’s east – Kursk and Belgorod – have repeatedly accused the Ukrainian armed forces of shelling over the border at civilian targets in the Russian Federation.
Poland says ‘Russians are responsible’ for cyberattack on online tax system
A Polish government official said on Wednesday that Russia was behind a hacking attack that blocked users’ access to the online tax filing system, as tensions between Warsaw and Moscow run high due to the war in Ukraine.
“Russians are responsible for yesterday’s attack, it must be made clear. We have information that makes it very likely that this was the adversary,” Reuters reports Janusz Cieszynski, a government official responsible for digitalisation, told broadcaster Polsat News.
The Russian embassy in Warsaw did not immediately reply to an emailed request from Reuters for comment.
Cieszynski said the attack consisted of distributed denial of service which resulted in blocking access to the website, but taxpayers’ data were not leaked.
“This is an attack that blocks access to the site, but does not block security and put our data at risk.”
Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne reports that the air alert in Kyiv has ended.
“This war has to be condemned,” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat has told the media in India at the gathering of G20 representatives.
“I hope, I am sure that India’s diplomatic capacity will be used in order to make Russia understand that this war has to finish,” Reuters reports Borrell said.
A EU source separately said the EU delegation would not support a statement at the G20 meeting if it did not include condemnation of the war.
Kyiv is currently experiencing an air alert after, according to state broadcaster Suspilne, “an aerial object” was detected in the sky above Ukraine’s capital.
The Russian foreign ministry has published an image of Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov meeting his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in India ahead of the G20 meeting. Turkey has acted as a broker between Russia and Ukraine during the war, helping to negotiate and mediate the grain export deal.
The Hungarian president, Katalin Novák, urged lawmakers on Wednesday to ratify Finland and Sweden’s Nato entry “as soon as possible” as deputies started debating the motions after months of the bills being stranded in parliament.
“It is a complex decision, with serious consequences, so careful consideration is necessary,” Novak said on Facebook.
“My position is clearcut: in the present situation, the accession of Sweden and Finland is justified. I trust the national assembly will make a wise decision as soon as possible!”
Hungary and Turkey are the two Nato members yet to ratify the entry of Sweden and Finland.
Here are some of the latest images we have been sent over the news wires from Ukraine.
Ukraine’s state broadcaster Suspilne offers this round-up of overnight news on its official Telegram channel. It reports:
Russian troops shelled Chuhuiv in the Kharkiv region: an apartment building was damaged, two people were injured. Over the course of the past day, Russian troops shelled the Kherson region 86 times, Kherson nine times. Five people died, seven were injured. Also, three people were killed and four were injured in Donetsk region as a result of shelling in the last day.
The claims have not been independently verified.
If you need a background recap on why Sweden and Finland decided to apply for Nato membership, then this video with our Europe correspondent Jon Henley has all you need to know.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that two people triggered explosive devices left behind by Russian occupiers in the Kherson region. It reports on its Telegram channel for the region that “a resident of Blahodatne was disassembling an explosive device found at home. The man died in the ambulance”. Additionally, it said a man was hospitalised after his tractor hit a mine.
Separately Suspilne also reports that the Kherson community was shelled 20 times by Russian forces in the last 24 hours, resulting in two deaths and one person being injured.
Authorities in Chernihiv, a region in northern Ukraine that borders Belarus and Russia, have warned residents that between noon and 4pm today near the village of Shestovytsya, “explosive devices will be detonated”.
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